WHY IS THE GAME OF BRIDGE SO MUCH FUN

Dottie the bridge player

Unknown to most of the under 50 year old generations, the game of bridge is the most popular card game in the world.  Created from the century old English game of Whist, Bridge was changed by Harold S. Vanderbilt back in 1926 to a game involving bidding and play to fulfill a contract between the partnerships to take a certain number of tricks.  Eli Culbertson popularized the game in the 1930s as he and his wife played several highly promoted matches against a renowned English partnership thought to be the best in the world.  Followed closely by the American press, the Culbertson’s, using their own method of valuing the strength of face cards, won those matches along with a large cash purse and bridge became the card game of choice by an estimated 30 million couples in the United States. 

Today, governed by rules established by the American Contract Bridge League, competitive bridge is played in duplicate form under highly structured tournaments at local Club, Regional or National Venues all over the World.  The rules of the game require that players limit all communication with their partner by which they are attempting to describe their hand to 15 words, numbers or phrases.  These are “pass“, the numbers, “1,2,3,4,5,6 and 7“, the four suits, “spades, hearts, diamonds, or clubs“, and the words, “no-trump“, ”double“, or ”re-double“.  Bridge is a trick taking game and each partnership sitting in the same compass direction, i.e. North-South or East-West, will try to bid to the highest and safest contract to take a certain number of tricks in order to score the maximum number of points on each hand.   Match points are realized by scoring better than or at least as well as those couples sitting in the same direction.  The initial and primary goal each bridge player sets out to achieve is to become ranked as a “Life Master”.  To reach this rank, a bridge player must win 300 master points (points typically awarded 1 or 2 at a time for winning or placing high in tournament play).  Of the 300 points, 50 must be pigmented and earned by winning Silver, Red and Gold points at Sectional, Regional or National tournaments.  Dottie Brewer, earned her Life Master rank in 1964 and after an hiatus of 40 years, she and husband Bud began playing tournament bridge again during which she has become a “Bronze Life Master” (500 master points) and is threatening to reach the 1000 master point level where she will qualify as a “Silver Life Master”.  While good partnership play requires systems and conventions for bidding to the best contract, a certain amount of judgment is required to react to inferences and nuances emitted by the opponents so as not to over reach or under bid on each hand.   Dottie learned how to play the game by conforming to highly structured bidding and play that has proven successful when applied to most opponents.  Consistency is her byword and instinct is her mantra.  Failure is unacceptable so when her partner makes an error in judgment or play, the juices often flow to cause distress leading to less than optimum results on a successive hand or two. This high competitive spirit makes her a very tough opponent and she is recognized as such every time she sits down to play.  Fortunately her partners only rarely have cause to be disturbed by her more conservative bidding or occasional misplay so the team is almost always in the running to place high in their tournament of choice.

Dottie & Bud Brewer, "B" Strata Winners

This past week Dottie and Bud entered three events at the Reno Holiday Regional Tournament being held at the Grand Sierra Resort Hotel during the week between Christmas and New Years.  Playing in the open pairs against  a representative group of 84 of the best partnerships in Northern California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, Dottie and Bud finished 6th overall in the tournament and first in the B Strata (Less than 1500 master points).  Two more events on Sunday and Tuesday were entered by the pair and they placed 4th overall and 3rd overall respectively with wins in the B Strata in both contests.  For these victories, they won 15.5 Gold Masterpoints thus adding to their totals fast approaching the 1000 point level. 

Bud Brewer is managing Director of Reno Youth Bridge Inc, a non profit tax exempt organization he and three of his cohorts, Kathy Lane, Molly Rakestraw and Grace Martin formed in the fall of 2008 to teach bridge to Middle School Students in the Washoe County School System. Offered as a fully funded after school activity, seventeen teachers have volunteered to teach participating students the basics of the game.  More informtion regarding the program can be seen on the entitiy’s website at  www.renoyouthbridge.com . 

The game of bridge is enjoyed by millions of people all throughout the world.  Membership in the ACBL, the governing organizaation that provides standard rules of play, regulations for sanctioning tournaments, international competition, and the ranking of player skills has a membership of  just under 200,000 here in the Western Hemisphere.  The game has become very popular to play online with several websites offering software to download for play with other participants.  The most popular of these is Bridge Base Online and the software is free for those who wish to download it.

Yes Bridge is fun.  It provides excellent brain exercise and great satisfaction when playing as a partneship team blowing away the opponents in a march to victory.

One Man’s Opinion  -  Bud Brewer